American Idol 6, May 8th – Tryin' to Stay Alive

It’s getting down to the wire on American Idol. This is final four. Everyone has a 25 percent chance of winning, right? Well, maybe not. I think Melinda has a 50 percent shot at it, and the others split the difference. This week, Barry Gibb is the guest mentor, with each Idol singing two of his songs. It should be a great night with the choices we have left.

Barry met with the Idols, and they all sang How Deep Is Your Love together. He believes the top four have all grown immensely, and since he’s made a lot of records with ladies, he thinks the the top three ladies “… and Blake” will do well. When Barry hears how wonderful the four sound together, he asks them if they want to be a group. He says one of the greatest things in life is collaboration, and that was fun for him, and having different people sing their songs is the greatest compliment.

When Melinda Doolittle tells Barry she’s choosing to sing Love You Inside and Out, he says it was confusing to him as it was a falsetto song originally. Her goal is take this group song and make it work as a solo. The choice was unusual for Barry, but he believes she pulled it off and that it works for a lady, since he was singing like a lady in the first place. Singing tonight, you can’t fault Melinda at all, although it’s not my favorite of hers. Towards the end, though, she starts to break into the Tina Turner thing a little.

Randy Jackson announces this is going to be an interesting night, as he was really looking to see who’s in it to win it. This was solid, but he’s not jumping up and down. Paula Abdul explains it’s hard to critique Melinda as her vocals are always spot on, but it’s almost like they’re looking for something that will wow them. Simon Cowell believes what she was trying to say is that she wasn’t that impressed by Melinda. With four people left, he expects incredible, and this seemed more like a backing vocalist performance.

It looks like Haley Scarnato in the audience as Randy and Ryan combine to show us how to text message. Ryan ends it saying he thinks maybe Randy should be a finger model. Somehow that’s just hard to imagine for me.

Blake Lewis will be singing You Should Be Dancing, which Barry considers a dance anthem of the late 70s. Blake’s just amazed at meeting a legend and pioneer of dance music like Barry Gibb. Barry feels that beat boxing really suits this song, as there is a breakdown area of the song, which is obviously the reason he chose it, for the chance to show off that ability, snce he’s the only right now that can do it. Singing tonight, Blake has made another change to his hair, now having a blonde streak in the front. For a guy that normally has a higher voice anyway, to turn on a falsetto just doesn’t sound right. It just seems like he’s beat boxing for beat boxing’s sake.

Randy seems to agree, saying it’s interesting that sometimes Blake does the beat boxing and it works, but tonight for him, Dawg, it didn’t. He doesn’t think the song needed it, and just keeping it real, he feels it made it corny for him, like being in a weird discotheque in a foreign country. Paula says it started shaky and the pitch was off on the melody, but she always thinks the beat boxing shows true musicianship, as no one can do that. While he didn’t have the best night with the song, it did show why he is unique and why he’s on the stage. Simon will give him that it’s unique, and he knows it’s a matter of personal taste, but he thought it was absolutely terrible and not finished. He gets cut off by the music, and Ryan promises to get back to him.

LaKisha Jones is choosing to do Stayin’ Alive,, and Barry thinks the song that was originally done by a guy in a high falsetto presents challenges if you’re a girl. He shows her the melody of the chorus, and asks why she would choose to stay down low when she can go up. He’s looking forward to hearing the slow version that she’s doing with this, and thinks it will be amazing to hear it with the band. What’s great about it when she’s singing onstage is that she can get her ‘tude going with it, although I don’t hear the high notes he told her to put in the song. She oddly doesn’t go off in her normal runs with it at all, but it’s the ‘tude that sells it.

Randy says it seems to be a theme for the night, but once again it was weird for him. These songs have great melodies and don’t need to be changed. He knows LaKisha is trying to make it her own, but all the stopping and starting with the melody was trying to do too much with it. Paula says you can sometimes gauge by the audience reaction, and while everyone is on their feet, taking the tempo down like that got everyone ready to be dancing then brought the mood down a little. But it doesn’t matter, they all still love her. Simon says there will be “no kiss tonight, Baby.” It’s back to the shouting, and he thinks the performance is verging on scary in parts. He thinks she needs to bring it on the second song.

Jordin and Ryan were doing voice warmups together and he spit on her, which he admits didn’t go well. Answering a viewer question, she says she has learned that she can handle a lot more than she thought, with so much being thrown on them, as she’s now doing two songs each week in addition to a music video, and three hours of school. She’s getting As and Bs, though. She’s singing To Love Somebody, which Barry says was written for a man, so it’s hard for him to imagine it being sung by a girl. although others have sung it. He thinks her version is new and fantastic. She went in thinking she has to show him the feeling in the song, and has done her job, as while a couple hundred people have sung this, he hasn’t heard a greater version than Jordin’s.